Look Out, Mayberry!

Oh, Taj MaHellions...so much to tell you!  I suppose that's what happens when you take a nearly four-month sabbatical from writing anything more challenging than a grocery list. 

In the past few months, we've survived Christmas, rung in a brand new year, eaten way too much Valentine candy and made plans to MOVE TO THE TAJ MAHELL.  Full-time, beyotches! 

Seems Shawn got on the radar of a corporate headhunter and his pointy little head (it truly IS pointy) got hunted.  The new job is about 50 minutes southeast of the Taj, so we will temporarily relocate there and plan a move closer to his work once our Gilligan's Island house has sold.  That should take a while, since we haven't finished the to-do list to even get it on the market.  Gee, I should start a whole new blog and then forget to write about the Gilligan renovations!  Or...maybe not.

So anyway, I know I've been MIA and both of the people who look at this blog have given up on it, but I'm planning to actually pick it up again and detail not only the remaining renovation of the Taj MaHell, but also my descent into madness as I attempt to live in a town that doesn't have a Target.  Or a mall.   Or baseball.  Or liquor-by-the-drink.  Think "wine margaritas", y'all...and FEEL MY PAIN!

On the good side, our entire demented extended family lives within minutes of the Taj, so we'll be able to drive them nuts with our shenanigans.  And possibly also get some free baby-sitting.

Mayberry-bound in 10 days.  Asylum-bound in 11.

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Well, howdy.

We had a massive wind storm last night here at Gilligan's Island.  As a couple of neighbors and I chatted in the den, the trees outside did their best to bend double...quite the show.  In the end, we got a bit of rain and a brief respite from the triple-digit temps of the day, so that was good.  Even better, we didn't lose power!

But if we lose power in the future, I now have a plan, thanks to Dante Shepherd over at Surviving the World.

New bookcase

It started simply, as most things that turn into huge productions do.

I wanted a long, low bookshelf to replace the two hulking bookcases in our living room at Gilligan's Island.  I looked online at least weekly to see if anything was available in our price range.  Occasionally, I would find "just the thing" but it would be over $200 and that's just not in the budget, especially not to replace perfectly functional items with new ones.

Then, day before yesterday, Shawn and I went to Office Depot to pick up some things for my work.  We decided to just cruise through their office furniture selection and saw almost exactly what I was looking for!  And it was on sale for $84.  That's doable, right? 

My intent was to put a low bookcase in back of the loveseat and leave the loveseat "floating" in the center of the room.  Once we got the bookcase assembled, though, Shawn suggested putting it in a corner by the fireplace and pushing the sofa against the far wall.  Our living room is SO small, this really seemed the better choice.  We'd been living with just a rabbit trail between the loveseat and the old bookcases and that was part of why I was so sick of them.  Here's a shot of the old, white bookcases, taken as we were taking stuff off them:

From the other side of the room:

We had crammed a big chair and ottoman into the corner by the fireplace:

Anyway, it was better than the original set-up of this room, when we didn't use it at all and had an antique (very uncomfortable) sofa in there, but it wasn't going to set the woods on fire.  We had begun to use the living room more, which was great.  Our house isn't big enough to have unused rooms in it, so incorporating the living room into our lives made a big difference.  But it still didn't work very well and we didn't use it too often.

So, last night at midnight, we finally finished moving EVERY STINKING PIECE OF FURNITURE in the room and this is what we ended up with (ignore the dust!):

New bookcase, in the corner where the chair & ottoman used to be.

Loveseat, chair & ottoman on the wall where the old shelves were.

View from the den.  Me likey.  You?

(Don't) Come On, Irene

Whew!  Looks like Hurricane Irene has decided to hit land farther up the coast, so we are staying put on Gilligan's Island and so far have just had some pop-up thunderstorms and wind.  I do not envy the people north of us, who are battening down the hatches and hoping for the best.

What with both my part-time jobs trying to get all full-time on me this week, I'm feeling over stretched, so it didn't take much convincing from Shawn for me to stay here and just wait til next weekend to go to the Taj.  Next weekend being Labor Day, Shawn is off and we can accomplish more anyway.  That's the theory, at least. 

Oh....remember the cool sink I scored off The Craig?  Well, it had this leetle old hard-water stain in the bowl, next to the drain.  Hmmm, I thought, a little Magic Eraser will take that right off.

Not.

Magic Eraser and C-4, maybe, but otherwise that stuff was NOT coming off.  I tried everything I could think of.  I went online and tried all the suggestions (lemon juice, white vinegar, Borax, bleach, mild abrasives).  You name it, I tried it.  And....nothing.

I thought we'd just wasted $60 on a sink that would always look dirty.  And that was sooooo not gonna happen!

So, I went medieval on that bad boy.  I got my handy dandy flat-head screwdriver and convinced the hard water scales to move on down the line.  Now, I'm not necessarily recommending that you go after your porcelain bathroom fixtures with metal blades, but it worked for me.  If you do have some serious calcium deposits and decide to try it, just remember to be gentle and use the blade at a low angle...you don't want to stab at it and scratch the surface.

Anyway, it's not the Martha Stewart-approved method, but who has the time to forumlate their own hard water stain remover and package it attractively in a repurposed gunny sack?  Not me.

Well, that's the latest.  Sad that a little stain removal is the only Taj-related progress to report.  But, the Fall 2011 Ikea catalog arrived today, so there's hope yet!


Off to drool over cheap, breakable goods with a Scandinavian flair....

Rock You Like A Hurricane

Um...that's a song, if you weren't alive in the 80's.

Anyway.

I'm just sitting here, watching "Barnyard" with the Tankster and plotting my return to Mayberry, possibly this weekend.  I'm anxious to get a little more done on the bathroom demo before the electrician needs to get in there.  And as an added bonus, I might be escaping Hurricane Irene.  Always a plus when you can avoid getting creamed by wind and water.

Oh, yeah, I have other news, too.  We scored a Kohler pedestal sink off Craig's List for $60.  These things are over $300 for the basin and the pedestal, so it was a great deal!  Here's a pic off The Internets of the same sink:

Cute, yeah?

I'm really excited about this find, since we knew we wanted to go back with a pedestal sink in the hallway bath, but DEFINITELY not the aqua sea-shell sink that was in there!

Now, we just need a 40-inch stove, a refrigerator, lots of drywall, paint, and an entire master bath.....guess I'll be spending a lot of time Craig-in'.

Until later....